Dynamics of Social Group Competition: Modeling the Decline of Religious Affiliation

作者：Abrams Daniel M^*; Yaple Haley A; Wiener Richard J

来源：Physical Review Letters, 2011, 107(8): 088701.

DOI：10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.088701

When social groups compete for members, the resulting dynamics may be understandable with mathematical models. We demonstrate that a simple ordinary differential equation (ODE) model is a good fit for religious shift by comparing it to a new international data set tracking religious nonaffiliation. We then generalize the model to include the possibility of nontrivial social interaction networks and examine the limiting case of a continuous system. Analytical and numerical predictions of this generalized system, which is robust to polarizing perturbations, match those of the original ODE model and justify its agreement with real-world data. The resulting predictions highlight possible causes of social shift and suggest future lines of research in both physics and sociology.

• 出版日期2011-8-16
• 单位西北大学